Boughs of Winter

Puffy snowflakes swirl
as if giant hands
tipped our globe of glass.
Snug in the car
we sip lattes
move in and out of fog
slip up the narrow road
curve high along the hill.
At the crest
wintry sun breaks through
throws diamonds on the white
shows an ancient tree
toppled on a bed of boughs.
We stop to gather limbs,
breathe steam into the air,
no bird, no skiff of wind,
no soughing of the trees
break the winter silence
until from far below
a creek rustles
beneath its quilt of snow,
weaves between
the feet of massive trees
on its travel to the sea.
Northwest night sneaks down
while we retrace our route
in a car as warmly fragrant
as the perfect cedar chest.

Stellarium - Software

The sky at night, viewed through clouds, trees and city lights. The sky at day, viewed through snowflakes and coats of gray.

A 25 meg download, Stellarium is free open source planetarium software. It shows a realistic sky in 3D - what you see with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope - when it sets itself to your computer time and date. It can also be used in planetarium projectors.

Watch the sky at any longitude and latitude you wish while the stars, planets and nebula advance in real time. The click of a button produces constellation lines and/or art plus many other options. The initial program provides four landscapes but a dedicated digital illustrator can insert her own backyard as the viewing ground.

This awesome program will tide me over until the sky turns clear and the air warms enough to venture outdoors with Stellarium to identify those objects seen overhead.

Mother Nature Writes and Nanowrimo Ends

Dear Residents,

Tomorrow will be cloudy. Cloudy with rain. Great heavy gray sheets of rain. Rain enough to rehydrate a mummy. There will be flash floods. Jagged gashes will split the sky and fill the air with the single sound of a thousand drums.

You have been whining about lack of rain. You have been forecasting a big year for wildfires.

Tonight, your weather forecaster will consult his doppler and chase his tail around the map in pursuit of flashing colors. He will generously promise sunshine tomorrow. He believes. His machine and he are fun to toy with. He is such a fool, but he should fool with someone else.

Tomorrow will be cloudy with rain and rain.

Love,
Mother Nature


AND Nanowrimo is complete for another year. There'll be hours of editing, reworking and formatting but another novel can't be a bad thing. Well, maybe.

Short Tale of a Long-Haul Trucker

Walking as if the wind blows leeward
he looks into my eyes ‘til the tic comes
blinks into it, a tremor marks his hand.
Tells of long-haul trucking, again,
once the doc approved.
Florida grew too large he says
overfull of Cubans, Haitians and Yankees
Kansas drew him with a lowcost home
before tornadoes turned him out.

He brings up Viet Nam
when it seems that I won’t ask,
makes it sound an afterthought
but I hear his yearn to tell,
thirteen days was all he stayed
less than a short vacation.
Testosterone still high,
he thought it a macho game,
missed a move,
didn’t see the bullet that sniped his neck.

Hair, the rich thick color of honey,
a messy cover on his head,
he strolls with limp and leftside lean
admiring art on my gallery walls
says his rig is parked across the street
says his world needs a pause.


Mist, altered fractal